LA PLATA, Md. -- A team of students from La Plata High School earned third place in the University of Maryland’s 22nd Annual High School Programming Contest held April 21 at the College Park campus. The event tests student’s knowledge of computer programming skills and problem solving abilities and requires teams to solve challenges.

The team is composed of freshman Cody McGinnis, juniors Alex Smith and Alexandria BenDebba and senior Andrew McCormick. The coach of the team is Richard Williams, a computer teacher at La Plata. Teams from North Point and Thomas Stone high schools also competed at the event, along with other high schools in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The three-hour competition required student teams consisting of four members each to attempt to solve several programming challenges in Java, which is a computer programming language that can be run across the Internet and a number of computer systems. Teams submitted their problems electronically to judges who tested the challenges for accuracy and completion.

As the third-place winners, the La Plata team received an $800 prize. The event is held annually and was sponsored by the University of Maryland’s Department of Science, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, and Papa John’s. For more information, visit http://www.cs.umd.edu/Outreach/hsContest12/.

Source: Charles County Public Schools